The H. Beam Piper Megapack

by H. Beam Piper

  “We missed the door,” he said. “That means we’ll have to tunnel in through who knows how much concrete. Well—”

  * * * *

  He used a second and larger charge, after digging a hole a foot deep. When he and his helpers came up to look, they found a large mass of concrete blown out, and solid steel behind it. Altamont cut two more holes sidewise, one on either side of the blown-out place, and fired a charge in each of them, bringing down more concrete. He found that he hadn’t missed the door, after all. It had merely been concreted over.

  A few more shots cleared it, and after some work, they got it open. There was a room inside, concrete-floored and entirely empty. With the others crowding behind him, Altamont stood in the doorway and inspected the interior with his flashlight; he heard somebody back of him say something about a most peculiar sort of a dark-lantern. Across the small room, on the opposite wall, was a bronze plaque.

  It carried quite a lengthy inscription, including the names of all the persons and institutions participating in the microfilm project. The History Department at the Fort would be most interested in that, but the only thing that interested Altamont was the statement that the floor had been laid over the trapdoor leading to the vaults where the microfilms were stored. He went outside to the radio.

  “Hello, Jim. We’re inside, but the films are stored in an underground vault, and we have to tear up a concrete floor,” he said. “Go back to the village and gather up all the men you can carry, and tools. Hammers and picks and short steel bars. I don’t want to use explosives inside. The interior of the crypt oughtn’t to be damaged, and I don’t know what a blast in here might do to the film, and I don’t want to take chances.”

  “No, of course not. How thick do you think this floor is?”

  “Haven’t the least idea. Plenty thick, I’d say. Those films would have to be well buried, to shield them from radioactivity. We can expect that it’ll take some time.”

  “All right. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  The helicopter turned and went windmilling away, over what had been the Golden Triangle, down the Ohio.

  Altamont went back to the little concrete bunker and sat down, lighting his pipe. Murray Hughes and his four riflemen spread out, one circling around the glazed butte that had been the Cathedral of Learning, another climbing to the top of the old library, and the others taking positions to the south and east.

  Altamont sat in silence, smoking his pipe and trying to form some conception of the wealth under that concrete floor. It was no use. Jim Loudons probably understood a little more nearly what those books would mean to the world of today, and what they could do toward shaping the world of the future. There was a library at Fort Ridgeway, and it was an excellent one—for its purpose. In 1996, when the rockets had come crashing down, it had contained the cream of the world’s technological knowledge—and very little else. There was a little fiction, a few books of ideas, just enough to give the survivors a tantalizing glimpse of the world of their fathers. But now—

  * * * *

  A rifle banged to the south and east, and banged again. Either Murray Hughes or Birdy Edwards—it was one of the two hunting rifles from the helicopter. On the heels of the reports, they heard a voice shouting: “Scowrers! A lot of them, coming from up the river!” A moment later, there was a light whip-crack of one of the long muzzle-loaders, from the top of the old Carnegie Library, and Altamont could see a wisp of gray-white smoke drifting away from where it had been fired. He jumped to his feet and raced for the radio, picking it up and bringing it to the bunker.

  Tenant Jones, old Reader Rawson, and Verner Hughes had caught up their rifles. The Tenant was shouting, “Come on in! Everybody, come in!” The boy on top of the library began scrambling down. Another came running from the direction of the half-demolished Cathedral of Learning, a third from the baseball field that had served as Altamont’s point of reference the afternoon before. The fourth, Murray Hughes, was running in from the ruins of the old Carnegie Tech buildings, and Birdy Edwards sped up the main road from Shenley Park. Once or twice, as he ran, Murray Hughes paused, turned, and fired behind him.

  Then his pursuers came into sight. They ran erect, and they wore a few rags of skin garments, and they carried spears and hatchets and clubs, so they were probably classifiable as men. Their hair was long and unkempt; their bodies were almost black with dirt and from the sun. A few of them were yelling; most of them ran silently. They ran more swiftly than the boy they were pursuing; the distance between them narrowed every moment. There were at least fifty of them.

  Verner Hughes’ rifle barked; one of them dropped. As coolly as though he were shooting squirrels instead of his son’s pursuers, he dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground, poured a charge of powder, patched a ball and rammed it home, replaced the ramrod. Tenant Jones fired then, and then Birdy Edwards joined them and began shooting with the telescope-sighted hunting rifle. The young man who had been north of the Cathedral of Learning had one of the auto-carbines; Altamont had providently set the fire-control for semi-auto before giving it to him. He dropped to one knee and began to empty the clip, shooting slowly and deliberately, picking off the runners who were in the lead. The boy who had started to climb down off the library halted, fired his flintlock, and began reloading it. And Altamont, sitting down and propping his elbows on his knees, took both hands to the automatic which was his only weapon, emptying the magazine and replacing it. The last three of the savages he shot in the back; they had had enough and were running for their lives.

  So far, everybody was safe. The boy in the library came down through a place where the wall had fallen. Murray Hughes stopped running and came slowly toward the bunker, putting a fresh clip into his rifle. The others came drifting in.

  * * * *

  “Altamont, calling Loudons,” the scientist from Fort Ridgeway was saying into the radio. “Monty to Jim; can you hear me, Jim?”

  Silence.

  “We’d better get ready for another attack,” Birdy Edwards said. “There’s another gang coming from down that way. I never saw so many Scowrers!”

  “Maybe there’s a reason, Birdy,” Tenant Jones said. “The Enemy is after big game, this time.”

  “Jim! Where the devil are you?” Altamont fairly yelled into the radio, and as he did, he knew the answer. Loudons was in the village, away from the helicopter, gathering tools and workers. Nothing to do but keep on trying.

  “Here they come!” Reader Rawson warned.

  “How far can these rifles be depended on?” Birdy Edwards wanted to know.

  Altamont straightened, saw the second band of savages approaching, about four hundred yards away.

  “Start shooting now,” he said. “Aim for the upper part of their bodies.”

  The two auto-loading rifles began to crack. After a few shots, the savages took cover. Evidently they understood the capabilities and limitations of the villagers’ flintlocks; this was a terrifying surprise to them.

  “Jim!” Altamont was almost praying into the radio. “Come in, Jim!”

  “What is it, Monty? I was outside.”

  Altamont told him.

  “Those fellows you had up with you yesterday; think they could be trusted to handle the guns? A couple of them are here with me,” Loudons inquired.

  “Take a chance on it; it won’t cost you anything but my life, and that’s not worth much at present.”

  “All right; hold on. We’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  “Loudons is bringing the helicopter,” he told the others. “All we have to do is hold on, here, till he comes.”

  A naked savage raised his head from behind what might, two hundred years ago, have been a cement park-bench, a hundred yards away. Reader Stamford Rawson promptly killed him and began reloading.

  “I think you’re right, Tenant,” he said. “The Scowrers have never attacked in bands like this before. They must have had a powerful reason, and I can think of only one.”

&nb
sp; “That’s what I’m beginning to think, too,” Verner Hughes agreed. “At least, we have eliminated the third of your possibilities, Tenant. And I think probably the second, as well.”

  Altamont wondered what they were double-talking about. There wasn’t any particular mystery about the mass attack of the wild men to him. Debased as they were, they still possessed speech and the ability to transmit experiences. No matter how beclouded in superstition, they still remembered that aircraft dropped bombs, and bombs killed people, and where people had been killed, they would find fresh meat. They had seen the helicopter circling about, and had heard the blasting; every one in the area had been drawn to the scene as soon as Loudons had gone down the river.

  Maybe they had forgotten that aircraft also carried guns. At least, when they sprang to their feet and started to run at the return of the helicopter, many did not run far.

  * * * *

  Altamont and Loudons shook hands many times in front of the Aitch-Cue House, and listened to many good wishes, and repeated their promise to return. Most of the microfilmed books were still stored in the old church; they were taking away with them only the catalogue and a few of the more important works. Finally, they entered the helicopter. The crowd shouted farewell, as they rose.

  Altamont, at the controls, waited until they had gained five thousand feet, then turned on a compass-course for Colony Three.

  “I can’t wait till we’re in radio-range of the Fort, to report this, Jim,” he said. “Of all the wonderful luck! And I don’t yet know which is more important; finding those books, or finding those people. In a few years, when we can get them supplied with modern equipment and instructed in its use—”

  “I’m not very happy about it, Monty,” Loudons confessed. “I keep thinking about what’s going to happen to them.”

  “Why, nothing’s going to happen to them. They’re going to be given the means of producing more food, keeping more of them alive, having more leisure to develop themselves in—”

  “Monty; I saw the Sacred Books.”

  “The deuce! What were they?”

  “It. One volume; a collection of works. We have it at the Fort; I’ve read it. How I ever missed all the clues—You see Monty, what I’m worried about is what’s going to happen to those people when they find out that we’re not really Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.”

  TIME CRIME (1955)

  Part 1

  Kiro Soran, the guard captain, stood in the shadow of the veranda roof, his white cloak thrown back to display the scarlet lining. He rubbed his palm reflectively on the checkered butt of his revolver and watched the four men at the table.

  “And ten tens are a hundred,” one of the clerks in blue jackets said, adding another stack to the pile of gold coins.

  “Nineteen hundreds,” one of the pair in dirty striped robes agreed, taking a stone from the box in front of him and throwing it away. Only one stone remained. “One more hundred to pay.”

  One of the blue-jacketed plantation clerks made a tally mark; his companion counted out coins, ten and ten and ten.

  Dosu Golan, the plantation manager, tapped impatiently on his polished boot leg with a thin riding whip.

  “I don’t like this,” he said, in another and entirely different language. “I know, chattel slavery’s an established custom on this sector, and we have to conform to local usages, but it sickens me to have to haggle with these swine over the price of human beings. On the Zarkantha Sector, we used nothing but free wage-labor.”

  “Migratory workers,” the guard captain said. “Humanitarian considerations aside, I can think of a lot better ways of meeting the labor problem on a fruit plantation than by buying slaves you need for three months a year and have to feed and quarter and clothe and doctor the whole twelve.”

  “Twenty hundreds of obus,” the clerk who had been counting the money said. “That is the payment, is it not, Coru-hin-Irigod?”

  “That is the payment,” the slave dealer replied.

  The clerk swept up the remaining coins, and his companion took them over and put them in an iron-bound chest, snapping the padlock. The two guards who had been loitering at one side slung their rifles and picked up the chest, carrying it into the plantation house. The slave dealer and his companion arose, putting their money into a leather bag; Coru-hin-Irigod turned and bowed to the two men in white cloaks.

  “The slaves are yours, noble lords,” he said.

  Across the plantation yard, six more men in striped robes, with carbines slung across their backs, approached; with them came another man in a hooded white cloak, and two guards in blue jackets and red caps, with bayoneted rifles. The man in white and his armed attendants came toward the house; the six Calera slavers continued across the yard to where their horses were picketed.

  “If I do not offend the noble lords, then,” Coru-hin-Irigod said, “I beg their sufferance to depart. I and my men have far to ride if we would reach Careba by nightfall. The Lord, the Great Lord, the Lord God Safar watch between us until we meet again.”

  Urado Alatana, the labor foreman, came up onto the porch as the two slavers went down.

  “Have a good look at them, Radd?” the guard captain asked.

  “You think I’m crazy enough to let those bandits out of here with two thousand obus—forty thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units—of the Company’s money without knowing what we’re getting?” the other parried. “They’re all right—nice, clean, healthy-looking lot. I did everything but take them apart and inspect the pieces while they were being unshackled at the stockade. I’d like to know where this Coru-hin-Whatshisname got them, though. They’re not local stuff. Lot darker, and they’re jabbering among themselves in some lingo I never heard before. A few are wearing some rags of clothing, and they have odd-looking sandals. I noticed that most of them showed marks of recent whipping. That may mean they’re troublesome, or it may just mean that these Caleras are a lot of sadistic brutes.”

  “Poor devils!” The man called Dosu Golan was evidently hoping that he’d never catch himself talking about fellow humans like that. The guard captain turned to him.

  “Coming to have a look at them, Doth?” he asked.

  “You go, Kirv; I’ll see them later.”

  “Still not able to look the Company’s property in the face?” the captain asked gently. “You’ll not get used to it any sooner than now.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” For a moment Dosu Golan watched Coru-hin-Irigod and his followers canter out of the yard and break into a gallop on the road beyond. Then he tucked his whip under his arm. “All right, then. Let’s go see them.”

  The labor foreman went into the house; the manager and the guard captain went down the steps and set out across the yard. A big slat-sided wagon, drawn by four horses, driven by an old slave in a blue smock and a thing like a sunbonnet, rumbled past, loaded with newly-picked oranges. Blue woodsmoke was beginning to rise from the stoves at the open kitchen and a couple of slaves were noisily chopping wood. Then they came to the stockade of close-set pointed poles. A guard sergeant in a red-trimmed blue jacket, armed with a revolver, met them with a salute which Kiro Soran returned: he unfastened the gate and motioned four or five riflemen into positions from which they could fire in between the poles in case the slaves turned on their new owners.

  There seemed little danger of that, though Kiro Soran kept his hand close to the butt of his revolver. The slaves, an even hundred of them, squatted under awnings out of the sun, or stood in line to drink at the water-butt. They furtively watched the two men who had entered among them, as though expecting blows or kicks; when none were forthcoming, they relaxed slightly. As the labor foreman had said, they were clean and looked healthy. They were all nearly naked; there were about as many women as men, but no children or old people.

  “Radd’s right,” the captain told the new manager. “They’re not local. Much darker skins, and different face-structure; faces wedge-shaped instead of oval, and differently shaped noses, and
brown eyes instead of black. I’ve seen people like that, somewhere, but—”

  He fell silent. A suspicion, utterly fantastic, had begun to form in his mind, and he stepped closer to a group of a dozen-odd, the manager following him. One or two had been unmercifully lashed, not long ago, and all bore a few lash-marks. Odd sort of marks, more like burn-blisters than welts. He’d have to have the Company doctor look at them. Then he caught their speech, and the suspicion was converted to certainty.

  “These are not like the others: they wear fine garments, and walk proudly. They look stern, but not cruel. They are the real masters here; the others are but servants.”

  He grasped the manager’s arm and drew him aside.

  “You know that language?” he asked. When the man called Dosu Golan shook his head, he continued: “That’s Kharanda; it’s a dialect spoken by a people in the Ganges Valley, in India, on the Kholghoor Sector of the Fourth Level.”

  Dosu Golan blinked, and his face went blank for a moment.

  “You mean they’re from outtime?” he demanded. “Are you sure?”

  “I did two years on Fourth Level Kholghoor with the Paratime Police, before I took this job,” the man called Kiro Soran replied. “And another thing. Those lash-marks were made with some kind of an electric whip. Not these rawhide quirts the Caleras use.”

  It took the plantation manager all of five seconds to add that up. The answer frightened him.

  “Kirv, this is going to make a simply hideous uproar, all the way up to Home Time Line main office,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do—”

  “Well, I know what I have to do.” The captain raised his voice, using the local language: “Sergeant! Run to the guardhouse, and tell Sergeant Adarada to mount up twenty of his men and take off after those Caleras who sold us these slaves. They’re headed down the road toward the river. Tell him to bring them all back, and especially their chief, Coru-hin-Irigod, and him I want alive and able to answer questions. And then get the white-cloak lord Urado Alatena, and come back here.”